Ilm-e-Khshnoom - Traditional Zoroastrianism: Tenets of the Religion

"This humble writer is extremely grieved and pained to hear the news that my respected elder Ustad
Saheb Baheramshah Navroji Sharaf, the founder of the IIm-e-Khshnoom Institute and one who threw new
light on Religion by giving subtle (minute) explanations on the original traditions of our "dharma", has left
this temporal world on the last traditional Roj Bahman Mah Bahman; because by his death I have lost a
true and faithful master who showed me the right way of my 'dharma'. I had close kinship with him for 15
years, so I get a feeling of heavy pain at my separation from him."
The next paragraph is historically important:
"I had heard the auspicious name of Baheshta Bahereh Respected Ustad Saheb Baheramshah Sharaf
for the first time in 1908-09. In those days he had come to Udwada by way of a mission headed by Mr.
Kekhashru Barjorji Choksey. He had given public lectures for three days in the holy building of the
sacred Iranshah, on hearing which the Mobed class of Udwada was taken aback. Although we had
often heard many a lectures from other speakers but Ustad Baheramshah gave some new matters and
subtle explanations regarding Kriyakaam performed by us, which drew very good attention of the
residents of our village."
Ervad Saheb Unwalla then writes that the reports of Baheramshahji's lectures had awakened great
curiosity in him, but he could meet Baheramshahji only in 1912 in an Avesta class conducted by the Avesta
scholar Mr. Khodabux Poonegar in the Anjuman Atash Baheram at Mumbai. "This had some amazing effect
on me," Ervad Unwalla writes. He then made it a point to visit Baheramshahji three or four times a year and
asked several questions about our Kriyakaam which had bothered him from his young immature age. He then
narrates a couple of such questions he put to Ustaad Saheb.
THE HAIR OF VARASIAJI
In the major Pav-Mahal ceremonies the hair cut out from the tail of the white bull, 'Varasiaji', is used. Now
hair taken out from a living body is known to be a "Naso” i.e. something having an evil field. In Patet
Pasheymani Kardeh 5, the words 'Haeer Nasa' or 'Hahair Nasa' refer to such 'Nasa' like hair, nail, spit,
mucus, which automatically go on decaying and defiling the atmosphere. Ervad Unwalla's question was: How
can such 'nasa', the hair of Varasiaji, be used in sacred ceremonies? He sets out the answer of
Baheramshahji.
'Varasiaji' has a special stature in Nature. He is required to be full white. Not a trace of any black hair
should be anywhere on the body. There is an elaborate ceremony of six days to consecrate the 'Varasiaji'.
The ceremony is mainly on the 3 pieces of hair cut out from the tail. Only after the consecration ceremony,
Varasiaji's stature is further elevated and his urine is then sacred enough to be used in the Nirangdin
ceremony. The three pieces of his hair are entwined on a ring (known as 'Varas' ring) and the Kriya through
which the ring is made to pass results in the consecration of the Varasiaji himself.
Baheramshahji explained to Ervad Saheb Baheramji Unwalla that the ceremonies of consecrating the
Varasiaji through the streaks of his hair entwined around the Varas ring intensifies certain kind of non-physical
electricity - "Khaster" - stored in the Varasiaji. The Varas hair is so charged with that electricity that so long as
the consecrated Varasiaji is alive, the electricity remains active in the Varas hair and it does not turn to be a
naso. A circuit is established between the living consecrated Varasiaji and the Varas hair on the ring.
No sooner Varasiaji dies the circuit is switched of and the Pav mahal fields are disturbed and rendered futile,
until new Varasiaji is consecrated and new Varas ring is prepared.
In his article Ervad Baheramji Unvalla has written out the explanation of Ustad Saheb rather tersely. I
have expanded it a little to let my reader have some idea about this sacred Kriya and also about the deep
mystical science on which our Kriyas are founded and Baheramshahji's insight of that science.
You may have heard, my dear reader, that there are several highbrows amongst Parsis who propagate
that our rituals and ceremonies are just external or symbolic and even not sanctioned by Asho Zarathushtra.
Alas! They know not what they are saying or doing. It is the bottomless pit of ignorance from which such
voices come out. Those Mobeds who have actually performed the Kriya's are fully conscious of their
contact with the divine unseen world and the effect and fields which are generated in Nature as well
as within the Mobed himself. If I write down here how any Kriya is to be performed, you will feel as if you
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